


What's In a Name?

by CompletelyDifferent



Series: Steven Universe One-Shots [11]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Death, F/F, Gem War, Gen, Pearl Solidarity, Pre-Series, also set during the series, early awkward cotton candy Garnet, peridot ponders what she's learned, steven questions his existence, terrifying renegade pearl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5704600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CompletelyDifferent/pseuds/CompletelyDifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Identity can be a complex issue, if you're a Gem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In a Name?

Human beings are a strange kind of creature.

 In many ways, they seem so very much like any other kind of organic life. They are fragile and short lived. They must ingest near constantly in order to preserve their existence. They are often excreting foul waste products. They partake in strange and bizarre reproduction rituals, which though technically far simpler than any form of Gem production, nonetheless can seem a thousand times more complex.

Yet, the strangest thing about them is how they _differ_ from other organic lifeforms.And how strikingly similar they can be to Gems.  

There is their appearance to start; bipedal, with two arms, two legs, heads with eyes and ears and mouths. Uncannily similar, but perhaps not so surprising. It is a very useful and versatile shape. The true uncanniness lies in the similar level of intelligence they developed. Nothing nearly as sophisticated as any Gem, of course, but something approximating it. They work in groups. Use and built tools. Communicate. Create social hierarchies. 

In them, Gems can see a reflection of themselves, even though it is one many refuse to look at.

There are still many differences between the social orders of human beings as Gems, as can only be expected. Power is constantly shifting, due to the fragile mortality of even the most high-ranking of leaders. Alliances are based primarily on kin groups and reproduction, not simple strategy. While different individuals will perform different roles or duties, they are not constrained by them; within limits, any human can learn to do any task. 

It may be relatively minor, but one of the differences that Rose Quartz finds particularly intriguing, however, is how humans beings identify individuals. Every person gets their own unique identifier- a name.  

She’s rather enamoured by the idea, in fact. 

oOoOoOo

For a fair amount of time, the fusion is not really sure how to think of herself. Out loud, she begins to say ‘ _I_ ’ and ‘ _me_ ’, and she uses it inside her head, as well- but just as often, she still thinks _Ruby_ and _Sapphire_. 

Then one day, something changes. She can’t say what. There is no truly startling event or development. She’s a little steadier on her feet than the day before, a little more coordinated, but that has been steadily improving regardless. She is simply taking a walk in the forest surrounding the Crystal Gem sanctuary, walking alongside a river bank while watching reflections play off the running water. Eventually, the river leads into a pond. She decides to sit by its shore, dipping her feet into the cool water. She sighs happily.

When she looks down into the pond’s smooth surface, instead of fish, she sees her own reflection for the first time ever. 

Brown skin. Three eyes, one red, one blue, one purple. Mismatched clothes, somewhere between a combat uniform and a ball gown. A puff of wild hair like a cloud, in riotous colours. 

_I’m beautiful_ , she thinks, awestruck. And then, _Of course I am_.

And from some part of her mind, there comes a sudden certainty. A name to place on the wholeness she has been feeling. _Garnet_.

She tells the others as soon as she makes it back to the garden, her smile stretching from cheek to cheek.

They adapt fairly easily. It was awkward, just calling her The Fusion- though not as awkward as saying, “ _Ruby and Sapphire_ ”. Garnet seems to flow easily off the tongue. It fits her perfectly. 

oOoOoOo

A few days after that, Garnet is walking at Rose Quartz’s side, discussing plans for the next strike on the colonisation’s construction projects. “Blue Diamond’s court is hugely frustrated by your rebellion,” she says. “You may not have left much physical damage yet, but you’re outwitting them at every turn. It’s hugely impressive, what you and your pearl have accomplished-“

Rose Quartz holds up her hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says. “But I’m afraid you’ve gotten it wrong. She’s not _my_ Pearl.”

Garnet stops. Blinks. Finally manages, “She’s not?”

“Oh, no,” agrees Rose Quartz. She’s still wearing that characteristic light humour on her face, but there’s a kind of hardness behind it, a warning. “She chose to come with me to rebel, but she did it on her own terms. She’s her own Gem, same as you or me." 

Garnet considers this. Slowly, she nods. Then she adds, “But then, back on Homeworld, who did she-?“

 “Does it matter?” Rose Quartz asks, a little sharp.

“… I suppose not,” Garnet murmurs, face hot. 

A pearl turning against the Gem Homeworld, taking up arms, learning to fight with such skill that she could take down a squadron of Quartzes, all on her own- that was terrifying and impressive. But believable, if that was what she had been told to do. But for her to have gone truly rogue, so as to belong to _no-one_ -

-that was far harder to wrap her head around. 

That evening, Garnet couldn’t help but stare at the Pearl Which Was Not Rose Quartz’s. Said Pearl was busy sharpening her sword, but occasionally she’d look up, sensing her stare; Garnet would look away quickly, only to find at least a couple of her eyes pulled inexorably in her direction again a few moments later. 

“What is it?” the Un-Owned Pearl asks at last, a little hostility leaking into her voice. Such anger is quite a disquieting thing to see on a pearl, who so often keep their faces blank.

“N-nothing,” Garnet stammers. 

The Un-Owned Pearl’s eyes narrows. She doesn’t say anything, but she clearly doesn’t believe her.

 “Alright,” Garnet relents. “I was talking with Rose Quartz earlier, and… Well. Is it true, that you don’t _belong_ to her?”

The Renegade seems unbalanced by the question. Her eyes go wide, a blush spreads across her cheeks, and the sharpening stone drops from her hand. Nonetheless, she straightens up. She sounds rather proud when says, “Yes. I suppose I don’t. Though I do belong _with_ her.”

Garnet begins to think of her as the Renegade Pearl, after that. Time stretches on, and they spend more and more time with each other- sometimes heads huddled in discussion and planning, sometimes back-to-back during raids, sometimes just in calm, quiet moments, where they sit together and enjoy their freedom. Eventually, in her head, Garnet drops both the ‘ _the_ ’ and the ‘ _renegade_ ’, and the other Gem simply becomes ‘ _Pearl_ ’. 

oOoOoOo 

Slowly but surely, the ranks of the Crystal Gems grow.

They make regular raids- on Blue Diamond’s court, on the developing Kindergartens, on the Lunar Sea Spire and the Galaxy Warp. In their wake they leave destroyed structures, poofed gems, and, most importantly, their words. “ _It doesn’t have to be this way._ ”

So Gems come to them. Some come because they have seen the Earth and its beauty, and want to protect it. Some come because they are dissatisfied with the lives they’d been given, the strict hierarchy of home. Some come, even though they are terrified, because they are even _more_ terrified of what they are running from. A few even come because they, too, have fused, and want the freedom to do so again.

Others who believe in their cause remain behind. They too are important. They spread rumours, stories, truths. “ _It doesn’t have to be this way_.”

And so even more Gems come to them.

The problem, though, is that as more and more Gems come, it becomes harder and harder to tell them all apart. On Homeworld and the other colonies, every Gem is conditioned to be like their sisters, identical and interchangeable. That doesn’t work in the rebellion. Every Gem who joins does so because they are _different_ , on some level. Rose Quartz is a general who takes advantage of those differences- she encourages every Gem to develop their own unique skills and interests, even if it is not something they would have otherwise been allowed to pursue. That requires some specificity; if you ask for Jade, you needed a way to show you meant the one who is an expert in Warp Pads, not the one who is really handy with a war-hammer.

Type. Facet. Cut. That is the traditional way to state your identity and designation, but the Crystal Gems find they do not much care for it.

More informal forms of identification crop up. When asking after someone, one might tap their forehead or their hip, to indicate the Gem-placement of the particular Flint or Spinal they are searching for. Sometimes shape-shifting would be employed, to get the message across. And in some cases, nicknames begin to develop.

Leaf is a blue agate who’d seen some of the local humans braiding leaves into her hair, and picked up the habit herself. Sabre is a sharp-eyed coral who’d taken a keen love to bladed weapons and stealth attacks. Holo is a pearl who refused to speak, out of habit, and was soon being referred to through by their preferred form of communication- holograms. One hematite with an interest in Earth animals took a particular liking to monkeys, and when she came back from a regeneration with a tail, became known as Monkey herself.

The original three though, they never needed any of that. If a Crystal Gem were to simply say Garnet, Pearl, or Rose Quartz, everyone knew immediately who they meant.  

oOoOoOo 

Nicknames offer no protection against Homeworld’s final attack.

In the long, long, aftermath of the war, the remaining Crystal Gems pick up their shattered pieces. They strike down the physical forms of those who were corrupted. They seal them up in bubbles, and continue searching for the other ones they’ve lost, the ones hidden deep in a Kindergarten, forced fusions secretly incubating. A ticking time bomb, designed to destroy the planet they once protected. 

Nameless, once again. Identity-less.  

oOoOoOo

 

For a long time, it’s just the three of them, alone on planet Earth. (Sometimes it’s four of them, when the grief becomes too much and Garnet splits under the strain, but Ruby and Sapphire always come back to each other, eventually). 

Then they find an amethyst hiding in the Kindergarten. 

She’s tiny. She’s never seen a single other Gem in her life. She’s half-feral. She barely knows a thing.

The Crystal Gems decide to teach her.  

It’s the most unorthodox of training. The amethyst has no preconceived notions. She’s willing to try _anything_ at least once. She learns fighting on the fly, during impromptu missions, being taught none of the formations or manoeuvres of a traditional Quartz squadron. Once she knows it’s something she can do, weapon summoning comes with amazing ease. After being stuck in a dull and dreary Kindergarten for so long, she’s over-awed by the Earth, taking every opportunity to explore it. She plays with her physical form constantly, shape-shifting with abandon, and coming back from her many, many regenerations different each time. They teach her the truth about fusion. For her, it is not taboo at all, but the ultimate form of connection between Gems.

They tell her about the rest of her kind. They tell her about the rebellion, about the war. They tell her that she, too, is a Crystal Gem.

To her, it is all just one great, grande story. She sees only the way Pearl’s face lights up with pride, not how Garnet’s fists clench, or how Rose’s eyes get lost in shadow. She wishes she could have been there.

She knows that there other other amethysts out there. The Crystal Gems tell her that much, if not the specifics. She doesn’t give them much thought. To her, she’s not one of many- she’s just herself. She’s just Amethyst. 

It might as well be her name.

oOoOoOo

In the months immediately leading up to the birth, everyone simply calls it ‘ _the baby_ ’.  

The baby will need food. The baby will need a crib. The baby will need clothes. The baby will need diapers. Rose can’t go into battle, in case it hurts the baby. Rose will have to go away, because of the baby. 

Two months before the due date, Amethyst wonders aloud; “So are we just gonna be calling the baby ‘ _Rose Quartz_ ’, or what?”

Pearl chokes. “Of course not!”

“Why not?”

“Because- because, the baby’s not going to **be** Rose, that’s why!”

“It’ll have her Gem,” Amethyst continues, stubbornly. She can sense Pearl’s furious horror, and she seems to be getting some strange satisfaction from it. 

“ _Amethyst_ ,” Garnet warns. 

Amethyst crosses her arms. “Just saying.”

They all know, deep down, that they can’t call the baby Rose. It’s just that they’re not sure what alternatives there have. Gems are simply called what they literally are; Pearl wonders if the baby could simply be ‘ _Meat_ ’ or ‘ _Hybrid_ ’. Garnet recalls the nick-names during the war, and wonders if the baby will eventually develop one of their own over time. Amethyst, a little more keyed in to human culture, eventually suggests ‘ _Junior_ ’.  

Greg laughs at the suggestion. “Not bad,” he says. “But Rose and I have already got a few ideas picked out.”

After some rummaging through the van, he manages to produce a sheet labelled ‘ _Baby Names_ ’. It’s a pretty long list, since Rose found herself fond of almost every single one Greg suggested. There’s also an entire book on baby names, which tells information about the names’ origins and meanings. Amethyst takes the book with her to show Pearl, who is just as surprised as her; they never knew that the little names humans gave to identify each other _meant_ anything. 

 Eventually, a name is chosen. Steven Quartz Universe. It seems to fit perfectly, somehow.

oOoOoOo

Years pass, and eventually the baby isn’t a baby anymore, but a boy- one old enough and experienced enough to start to understand his place in the universe for which he was named.

Outwardly, he wears a cheerful face, a fountain of apparently endless optimism. At night, though, when he’s all alone, those quiet, secret worries would rise. Sometimes, he’d lie awake in his bed, his finger tracing the smooth lines of the stone that rests where his belly button would be.

_“We can’t both exist. I’m going to become half of you…”_  

_“Sometimes I wonder if she can see me through your eyes.”_

_“Rose… why do you look like that? Why are you so weak?!”_

_“They think I’m Mom.”_  

_“Just let me do this for you, Rose!”_

_“They tried to take me hostage because they think I’m my Mom. And maybe I kind of am?…”_  

It’s disquieting, not to be sure who you really are. Not fully Gem, not fully human, not even fully yourself.

Except that’s not true, he tells himself. Maybe it’s true that he’s kind of his Mom. But he’s also something Rose Quartz never was. He’s _Steven_.   

oOoOoOo

“Peridot!”

On Homeworld, or one of its colonies, or one of its spaceships, the command would have caused every peridot within hearing range to stand at attention immediately, to await further specification and instruction. Stranded on Earth, that is completely unnecessary. There is only one peridot on the entire planet, and, unfortunately, that peridot happens to be her.

No standing to attention here. That would be a death sentence, she is certain. She learns to react differently. First, she tries running. Once she learns how to utilise her limb enhancers to provide propulsion, she tries flying. When she is caught, she instead begins to flinch, and shield herself from incoming blows.  

Not that it would do much good. Peridots are technicians. Robbed of her limb enhancers, there is nothing she could do to defend herself against a group of wild renegades. She still remembers the pain she experienced when her last body was destroyed; the horrible, crushing pain of the fusion’s gauntlets.She never wants to go through that again.

After being released from her bubble, though, there are no more blows. They need her too much to eliminate her entirely. She does not let her guard down. She sees the expressions on her captors’ faces, and knows they are just looking for the first excuse or opportunity to strike.

… well, except for the Steven. That one seems genuine, at least. 

Time passes. She works on the drill, with the often surprisingly adept Crystal Gems, group of defects they may be. She is given a tape-recorder so she can continue making audio-logs. She learns about Earth, and its many unique features; about rain, and insects, and humans, and jokes, and food, and Camp Pining Hearts, and music. She stops expecting blows.

She works side-by-side with a Pearl. She saves the life of a Quartz. She attempts to fuse with a Permafusion.  

She goes up to the planet’s moon, walks through corridors designed by Diamonds, intended only for the most elite of the elite. Her hands glide across a monitor so ancient that it is practically classic art. She sees an image of the Earth that could have been, and it could have been _great_.

The Crystal Gems don’t agree. That old terror returns when she stares into Garnet’s visor, and thinks for a moment that she is about to be shattered.

She isn’t.

She thinks she can understand, on some level. As inept as they may have been, the Crystal Gems _had_ attempted to protect this planet for thousands of years. Seeing a possible future where it was hollowed out and eviscerated must have stung. 

And she realizes, that in that potential future, as grand and glorious as it may have been, many of the things she has grown to appreciate about the Earth would have been destroyed, just a surely as by the Cluster.

There has to be an alternative.

So she takes the Communication Crystal. Formulates plans in her mind, schematics, ways to continue the colonisation of Earth without completely destroying its current ecosystems, and instead utilising its unique resources. She’ll petition Yellow Diamond. She’ll understand. She’ll see. The plan is beautiful, elegant, _rational_ -

“My Diamond! Peridot checking in,” she stammers, up into the face of Yellow Diamond. 

“…Which peridot?” 

She stutters. Then, with a surprising amount of difficulty, she recites the designation she had memorised mere moments after first emerging; “ Ff- Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG.”

She petitions Yellow Diamond, but she couldn’t care less. Her petitioning turns into pleading, which turns into arguing, which turns into ranting, until eventually- 

“ _I’m not interested in the puny thoughts of a_ ** _peridot_**!”  

Afterwards, through the haze of horror and guilt and shame and fear and self-loathing and anger, she hears the others congratulating her, shouting her name, and Peridot finds that somehow, it strengthens her resolve. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to work in a "would a rose by any other name smell as sweet" reference and failed, sadly. 
> 
> Anyway, this last Bomb gave me a lot of feelings.


End file.
